This attractive and readable volume is the result of the happy combination of the wartime letters of Lt. John James Peck and a profusion of illustrations based on lithographic representations of Mexican places and life and battle scenes from the war between Mexico and her northern neighbor. The text has been skillfully edited with foreword and commentary by Richard F. Pourade.
Peck served with the invading North American forces both in the north and in the campaign from Veracruz to the Mexican capital. His letters to friends, family, and newspaper editors, dated from August, 1845, through April, 1848, have been edited and at times consolidated to avoid repetitions and eliminate extraneous matter. Recipients are not identified. Peck proves a good and sympathetic observer and commentator on places and people, military and political events. The half a hundred illustrations are drawn from the work of Captain D. P. Whiting, Englishmen Daniel Thomas Egerton and John Phillips Carl Nebel, a German, and Mexican Casimiro Castro.
